


Such A Time

by justbygrace



Series: Inspired by Songs [11]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9575651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: Inspired by 'Payback' by Rascal Flatts





	

It was a bad idea. It was a really bad idea. But that only occurred to John about ten minutes too late. By that point he was standing alone in his dorm room staring at the closed door in mute shock and trying to figure out why he had agreed. Oh right, it was because she had asked him and he was an absolute pushover when it came to her.

She was Rose Tyler. And she was his downfall. His pièce de résistance. The best thing that ever happened to him. The woman of his dreams (literally and metaphorically). He had stumbled into her during a photography class that he had only taken as a filler, but he had been instantly captured (pun fully intended) by her beautiful smile and had volunteered to partner with her on every single project. The teacher hated them, the other students rolled their eyes at them, but John and Rose didn't care; they had each other and they were happy.

The one teensy, tiny problem standing between John and utter happiness had been Mickey Smith. There were few humans that John disliked more than he disliked Mickey. In another lifetime the two might have gotten along great, but as long as it was Mickey's bed Rose was curled up in, Mickey's mouth she was kissing and Mickey's hand she was holding - well, John despised, abhorred, disliked, and hated the man.

And so earlier (about fifteen minutes ago) when Rose had burst dramatically into John's dorm room and thrown her arms around him while shedding a few tears into his jacket, well, John didn't press her for a reason. He got one anyway. Turns out that Mister Mickey the Idiot had royally screwed up by sleeping with Trisha Delaney. John didn't know Trisha at all, but he had a sudden desire to anonymously send her flowers. Especially when Rose had caught his hand and begged him to go down to the club tonight, oh please, John, I just want him to see that he didn't really hurt me and that I'm just fine.

So, of course he said yes. He had a funny feeling that if Rose asked him to streak naked through the professor's meetings, he would say yes; he was a bit of a fool where Rose was concerned (it was a thought he tried not to examine too deeply). However, it now left him in the position of having just agreed to escort her to the club and dance and do any manner of other things to make Mickey jealous. He tore apart his closets trying to find a relatively clean shirt and fussed with his hair to get it to achieve the perfect balance of sticky-up-ness, while trying in vain to ignore the fact that making Mickey Smith jealous was something he daydreamed about on a daily basis and he shouldn't be freaking out about it quite this much.

His mental pep talk did him absolutely no good, he found, when he met Rose at the car park with sweaty palms and a rapidly beating heart. She seemed just as calm, cool, and collected as she always was. She intertwined her hand with his, ignoring his ragged breathing while maintaining a steady stream of conversation the entire way to the club.

It was a place entirely given over to its university student clientele. Complete with upbeat pop songs, tacky decor, and deep cushiony chairs, it was the perfect place for snuggling with one's significant other in relative darkness. John had been there before of course, but he had never been there with anyone special and he wasn't at all sure he wasn't going to make a complete arse of himself.

Rose wanted to dance, bypassing the bar area with hardly a glance. John gazed wistfully at the bottles of liquid courage, but tonight was about Rose and about making Mickey jealous. That was probably why Rose was pressed up so close to him, really, that had to be why it seemed like she was trying to crawl into his very skin. He honestly didn't mind having her soft curves pressed all over him, rather enjoyed it actually, but he had to be extra stern with his more...erm...excited parts of his anatomy to keep it from taking a more, ah, pressing interest in matters.

He knew how to dance, sort of, but whatever Rose was doing was not dancing as he had learned it as a boy. This was a whole new level of...something, brought on by flashing lights, a pounding beat, and a heavy crowd. John attempted to relax and move his hips with hers (bad idea, no, down boy), attempting to follow her lead as she gyrated, sashayed, and revolved around him. He kept his hands loosely on her, allowing her to set the pace - now in front of him, now behind, now bumping sideways into him. It was intoxicating, maddening, liberating, and a lot of other -ing words he didn't have time or effort to think up with her moving as she was.

Staying on the dance floor with Rose spinning around him and rubbing her body on his was something that John would have happily done for the rest of the foreseeable future, but the stiffening of Rose's posture told him that danger had been sighted. Sure enough, John felt Mickey's scowl on him from across the room. John relaxed his grip even further, oddly shy about having his hands on Rose in front of Mickey, but when the crowd shifted, he realized that Mickey's arm was slung around a dark-haired woman whom he assumed to be Trisha Delaney.

That sight altered something inside of John; he was suddenly furious. Furious with Mickey for daring to parade his new girl around where he clearly knew Rose would be, furious with Mickey for existing, furious with himself for allowing Rose to pull him into this. Actually, he was more than a bit furious with himself for not saying anything to Rose about how he felt ages ago. Sending what his sister had once christened his "oncoming storm glare" at Mickey; John threw his whole self into dancing with Rose.

No longer a passive participant, he matched his partner’s every movement and threw in a few twists of his own. He felt Rose's eyes leave Mickey and center on his face and he met her gaze full on. Her eyes were darkening and he knew his were doing the same as they focused only on each other and their subtle communication to shift positions. The rest of the room - the sweaty crowd, disco lights, and Mickey - the Idiot - Smith - disappeared and it was just him and Rose, spinning, turning, rotating, moving, and dancing, together.

It had to end sometime, most good things in his life did, and this ended rather abruptly when someone tapped his shoulder. He half-turned when something hard hit his face with a painful crunch. When he came to, his awareness took its sweet time in letting him know what had happened. Gradually, he realized his head was supported by something soft (Rose's lap), there was less noise with a fresh breeze (they were on the patio), and Rose was yelling at someone (Mickey).

He tried to speak, but was quickly shushed by soft fingers pressing to his lips, and he found he was okay with Rose's new method of hushing him. His head hurt less when he didn't move it and so he didn't, letting his ears slowly filter in the lessened noise. Something was very soothing about laying with his head in Rose's lap, surrounded by her essence, while he listened to her berate Mickey up one side and down the other He found himself purposefully laying as unobtrusively as possible to allow the moment to stretch out further.

At some point, Mickey apparently decided he had enough and left after shooting some last minute scathing words at Rose, causing her to tremble and her eyes to well up with tears. That would never do, and ringing head or no ringing head, John managed to move to a sitting position so he could wrap his arms around her and whisper how Mickey really was an idiot, and she deserved so much better, and a lot of other things he'd been practicing for such a time as this.

At first, Rose seemed glad to lean on him and shed her tears into his jacket, but when she pulled away and looked embarrassed, John desperately tried to wrack his brain to see what he'd done wrong. She was muttering something that sounded vaguely apologetic and it took him longer than he’d like to admit to realize it was because she thought that she shouldn't have asked him along. It was going beyond the bounds of their friendships, and she was really very sorry, John, and could they still be friends please?

He was literally dumbfounded that she thought that she in any way needed to apologize for anything that had occurred that evening. He was silent for so long that she started to pull away, having misinterpreted his actions, and so of course he had to correct that notion, rambling about photography and clubs and dancing and idiots and if she wanted and a lot of other words that made more sense in his head than they did when they exited his mouth (as usual). He assumed she must have gotten the basic gist because she started laughing and then crying and when she kissed him, he discovered that Rose always knew all the best ways to shut him up.

Afterwards (way afterwards), he told her how he used to save negatives from their Photography class so he could always see her smile, and she would tell him that she should have had the guts to break it off with Mickey the day she first met him. They laughed and held each other and made love and discovered that sometimes, the worst ideas end up being the very best ones.


End file.
